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[very]

Hello everyone,

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post but I'm sure one of the lovely admins can let me know if I need to move the post... trigger warning for pet passing away...

Well, there's not an awful lot to say really, it kind of is just what it says in the topic title. My beautiful boy Thor died on Boxing Day evening (26th December 2023). I had him for around 8 years, we think he was about 11 years old but he was a rescue so it's hard to know for sure.  Myself, my partner and our 9yo daughter got up on Boxing Day morning and fed our two cats, got ourselves ready and headed out to my father in law's at around 11:30 for lunch.  We got home from father in law's house at around 20:30 and I could hear yowling upstairs.  I thought maybe someone had accidentally shut Thor in a room not realising he was in there...

I got upstairs and all the doors to the bedrooms and bathroom were open, but there was our boy doing a poo in the bedroom! Not like him at all - he was well house trained.  He then went out to the hallway and was incontinent of urine and just sat there in the puddle.  He got up and tried to walk around but he was stumbling and bumping into things.  I got a clean towel out of the cupboard and scooped him up and held him.  He started panting heavily and dribbling.  He was like that for maybe three minutes whilst my partner and I called all the vets trying to find somewhere we could take him.  Then he had a very brief seizure, maybe only 10 seconds or so, and that was it, his heart had stopped and he wasn't breathing.  I attempted CPR, having worked in human hospitals for some years, but of course it's different for cats and I don't know CPR procedure for cats so I was sort of "winging it". 

He wasn't unwell at all, not that we knew of.  The vet said it was likely a blood clot or an aneurism that led to the heart attack.  They reassured us all that we did everything right and that there was nothing more we could have done. 

He used to sit with me when a flashback or panic attack started coming on.  He'd come over and plonk himself down right on my chest and purr and purr and nuzzle me and ground me back to the moment.

The house feels really empty without him here.  Our other cat has been so sweet, she was there with us all when he died and I think she knows, in whatever way a cat can know, that he's passed.  After eating her meals she's been wandering about the house meowing, as if she's looking for him, for a few minutes, then she'll come and settle down for a cuddle with one of us.

Our daughter asked for a stuffed toy that looks like him so that when she misses him a lot she can cuddle the toy and feel like she's giving him a cuddle.  We managed to find one that should be delivered in the next few days.  We also found a book for her that's like a grief journal, it's personalised with his name and she can write all the things she loved about him etc.

I tried attaching a photo but it says the file is too large.  He was white and grey/brown tabby sort of colouring.  He was very fluffy.  We think he was part Maine coon and part ragdoll, he had whispy hairs coming out of his ears like an old man, ginormous paws and a beautiful heart shaped nose.  He was so loving and cuddly and spent almost every moment of the day cuddled up to one of us in the house. He was very clever and highly food motivated so he was trained to sit and offer his paw for treats.  I miss him terribly.

Thanks to everyone for the warm welcome.  I wasn't really expecting such a positive response and it has helped me feel a small sense of belonging in what is a very difficult time of year for me.

Maybe you don't relate to these feelings at all, I don't know. The yearning improves. It just creeps in from time to time, but no longer takes root.

I really do relate.  I think that this is what I wanted to hear.  Some reassurance of light at the end of the tunnel.  I know that the yearning crops up less and less as time goes on, and yet it still sometimes feels like it will never subside.

As you've mentioned, the issues around identity definitely crop up.  It's hard to integrate all these different parts of me when it sometimes feels like, the longer I remain no contact with FOO, the further I'm distancing myself from that little girl who went through all of the trauma.

It's hard to hear friends talk about their childhood memories, their little traditions and such. 
I know that I will stand there and endure all of the pain and grief of staying silent, because I simply have nothing to share.  I don't want to poison their conversation with my trauma by relaying my childhood memories.  I don't want to lie and make something up.  I don't want to hand pick one of the faintest and most insignificant "happy" memories from the handful that I have, to share with them, because it feels like I would be doing a disservice to all of those parts of me who know all the pain that my FOO caused me.

So I just carry it.  Until it starts to feel like it's too much.  Then I go back to therapy so I can lay down the load.  Then I pick myself back up, with my little bag of trauma now much lighter, and off I go into the world again.  Rinse and repeat.

It's hard.  Sometimes it's manageable, but today it's hard.  I think because of Christmas coming up.

I am really happy you have stayed here and have shared your reactions and your vulnerabilities. That is a brave thing to do at any time, but when you are in a new place and don't really know the people yet - wow. Well done.

Thank you.  This brings up a lot of "stuff" for me.  It makes me feel uncomfortable and ashamed and silly that such a "normal" human process of expressing how I feel (from behind a screen, with all the layers of protection that offers) is something that should receive any praise.
I'm slowly getting better at praising myself for these things, but accepting those words from other people is hard.  It feels shaming.  Not because you're shaming me, but because it rivals the voice of my inner critic and seems to rile them up! 

The third paragraph in your response really "hits the nail on the head" so to speak.  I couldn't think of which part to pull for a quote.  We are all out here just doing our best and, you're absolutely right, that looks different for all of us.

It's just a shame that many of us, much of the time aren't able to see ourselves for who we truly are.  Those are the wounds that relational trauma leave behind.

my whole life, all aspects of it, are encumbered and hindered and made really, really difficult by this stupid cptsd.

This is so poignant.  It truly does seep into every aspect of life for me too, and indeed many, if not all of us with CPTSD.
This is something that I have found profoundly difficult to convey to others.  It's not "just" flashbacks and nightmares (as if those things alone aren't already horrific enough)!  It's, oftentimes, a pervasive and consuming sense of toxicity around your own existence.  It's like the old story of king Midas, but it feels like everything I touch turns to toxic ooze rather than to gold.

Fortunately, not every day feels like that for me anymore.


I can also completely relate to what you said about the friendships you didn't realise were unhealthy because they were "healthier than FOO".  That is for sure how I ended up in a string of abusive/unhealthy relationships.  I didn't have a "healthy relationship" framework to look to.  So anyone who wasn't abusing me as "severely" (or what I believed was as severe) as my FOO was, became the best thing since sliced bread by default.

It's interesting for me to hear that you've not found a relationship as it's a stark contrast to my own experience of inappropriate overtly sexualised behaviour.
I don't want to say that I'm happy for you, or that I'm sad or sorry for this situation, because I'm not sure if you experience it as positive or negative.
What I will say is that you deserve to find meaningful relationships with others, whether those are platonic/romantic or any other form, and I hope that you find them to be safe and fulfilling.
We all deserve to feel safe connection to other human beings, in fact we all *need* safe connection to other people, not just to survive, but to thrive, even if the concept of thriving might feel quite alien to many of us!

I am so sorry what I wrote triggered a response in you AnnaMaria, that of course is the last thing any of us wants to do here.  I totally believe you are in pain and ended up with CPTSD because of what you went through. I think what I saw in your post was what it must have taken to leave at an earlier age than many of us but you're right, we end up doing things based on the need to survive. I do think you have every right to be proud of yourself, you did not succumb to all that you went through.

My bad, and again so sorry for not thinking through what I was writing. 

Honestly, Kizzie, it's not your bad at all.  You wrote something that I believe was intended to be supportive and kind, and it was!  But due to all of "my stuff" I perceived it as a diminishing statement.

I guess that just points out to me another thing I now have the opportunity to heal.

Thank you so much for your kind words and please don't feel as though you did something wrong.  It's not you and it's not me.  It's the people who caused my CPTSD to blame because that's where my reaction came from.

 

I went away and had a think about this overnight. 

I realised that what you said about having a sense of power/self that others might not because I left my FOO at a young age triggered something in me.

I started to feel really shameful because I felt as though I didn't have a right to feel as traumatised as I do because I managed to escape my abusers earlier in my life than a lot of people do.

I realise that my response above is me trying to justify my experience, which I don't need to do. 

I also now feel ashamed of "over sharing" because I didn't really feel ready to share everything that I wrote above.  But I wrote it as a knee jerk reaction - to try to convey that I *am* in pain.  To try to convey that I *do* struggle with feeling disempowered and unsafe very often. 

In the past I have been called a liar, or told that my timeline doesn't make sense or that none of this really happened, etc.  Which is why my response above has triggered these feelings in me again.

On reflecting I suppose that what I'm writing now is the answer I could have given instead; that no, I don't think that I necessarily have a sense of power or self worth that others might not because I left my FOO at a young age.

I believe that leaving at a young age was what I had to do for survival, I honestly think I would not have physically survived another day in the home of my mother or the home of my father.  I mean that quite literally.

I also believe that at that young age (and because of the abuse that I suffered) I did not have any real concept of physical safety beyond the black and white of life and death.  Therefore, when I left the trauma didn't end.  I fell into patterns of unhealthy, abusive relationships and I didn't know how to keep myself emotionally safe once out of imminent physical danger.

In my experience, the justice system perpetuated the cycle of abuse long after I left my FOO and subsequent abusive relationships.

I have had to work really hard to establish any semblance of identity that I have today.
I am incredibly proud of myself for going no contact with my FOO when I did, but I don't think that it made things easier or better.  It wasn't a conscious decision at the time, I didn't consciously know or decide that if I didn't leave, I wouldn't survive, I just did it, because my survival brain made me.

It's interesting for me to see how your reply caused such an emotional response in me, and I'm hoping that by leaving this post up I can learn from it, rather than asking someone to delete it in a shame driven moment of self doubt.

Thanks for your response Kizzie.

It sounds like it was very difficult for you to receive the news that your M had passed.  I'm sorry for the pain it caused you when she passed, and for the pain she caused you before.


Haha, erm, well... unfortunately things didn't get better straight away.  When I left at 16 I moved in with an abusive older boyfriend.  When that relationship broke down (very soon after moving in) I was homeless for about a year.  Then I met my daughters father who was incredibly abusive and had a 2.5 year long horrific relationship with him.  Fortunately, I left him when our daughter was 5 months old, shortly before I turned 20.

I think that having her was what started me on my healing journey.  Whilst I didn't necessarily recognise I was being abused by him at the time, I did realise that I didn't want my daughter to grow up witnessing the violence and arguing.  I wanted better for her than a repeat of my childhood.

Although I left at 19, much of the abuse continued through the civil courts and the resulting contact arrangements for my daughter until they finally ruled no contact when I was around 22 or 23.  He has since been sent to prison (just a year or two ago), but not before repeating the cycle with another woman, with whom he had another daughter.

It's around the time the courts ruled for no contact between him and my daughter that I started therapy with a trauma specialist, I was given their details by witness support.  Again because I wanted to do better by my daughter, and with the space to finally start processing not only my relationship with her bio dad, but also my own childhood trauma, I truly started the journey of healing.

So yes, the space from my FOO has helped enormously on my healing journey.

It's just unfortunate that the damage done to my self perception/attachment style etc meant that leaving my FOO did not also mean the end of ongoing trauma.

But here I am, regardless, slowly improving, with at least some hope for the future.

[a]

Hello everyone,

I have been no contact for a long time.  I am currently 28 and I have been no contact with my mother for 14 years (removed from her care aged 14 and placed with my father).  I then moved out at 16, so have been no contact with my father for 12 years.  Sadly, this meant losing everyone in my extended family too, all the aunties and uncles and cousins.  I knew, even then, that this was what I had to do to survive.

When I left I didn't maintain any contact at all - a clean break with everyone.  I packed a bag of clothes, changed my phone number and never looked back. 
At 19 I relocated across the country.

I sometimes wonder what they are doing with their lives, whether they might miss me on birthdays or at Christmas.  But the further I get in my recovery journey the less these feelings crop up. 

There are brief moments, usually during emotional flashbacks, when I yearn for a mother.  Not necessarily my mother, just a mother, the mother I should have had, my birth right to a loving, nurturing parent.
I've learned that during these moments little me is telling me that she needs love and care and, when I'm managing well, I nurture myself to alleviate the grief.

Has anyone else been no contact for such a large proportion of their lives?

The experience of CPTSD symptoms is a *normal* response to *abnormal* events.
It is only when we are out of the danger zone and living our lives free from abuse that we are seen as having *abnormal* responses to *normal* events.

The abuse is the issue, not us.

It is not normal or healthy for people to abuse others.

Your brain has done the best job it knows how to keep you safe.  Because the trauma was so intense and pervasive your brain now believes that it has to protect you from all of these external threats, even if they are no longer present.

Another couple of podcasts you may find helpful are:
- conversations with Carolyn Spring
- Trauma Rewired

Oh, wow, did this resonate with me!

*trigger warning - mention of violence*




I remember talking to my therapist about how the two most vivid memories I have of my father are;

1. How he used to read me "the giraffe and the pelly and me" by Roald Dahl.  He would sit on the edge of my bed whilst I snuggled under the duvet, all warm and cosy in my pyjamas, and put on a different voice for each of the characters.  It is by far my best memory of him.

2. I remember how he ran my mother down in his car, just outside of my grandmothers house, after bundling my brothers into his car and trying to take me too.  I went with my mother to our neighbours (retired nurse) afterwards and watched them stitch up her arm that had been gashed open when she hit the ground.  It is a strange, dissociated memory, but I understand now just how horrific it truly is.


I still grapple with the reality that one man was capable of both of those things.


For me personally, I have come to the realisation that my father was, in reality, a very bad man.  It is harder to deal with those same feelings when it comes to my mother. 

I think because my mother's abuse and neglect was aimed at me (and because I understand how she was also a victim of abuse and can relate to her experience as more than likely being PTSD or CPTSD too) it is harder to be objective.

Some days I actively hate my mother.  Other days I grieve over the loss of the mother-daughter relationship that I never had. Other days still I feel she did the best she could, given all that she had been through herself.

I think that by understanding she was so traumatised herself, and was therefore incapable of being a good enough mother, I have been able to let go of a little of the shame that I carry around.  It wasn't my fault that she was traumatised long before my birth, therefore it wasn't my fault that she couldn't love and protect me because she didn't even know how to love and protect herself. 

I have been no contact with her for 14 years.  I still believe if I were to contact her and try to talk about the abuse and neglect she would deny it all.  I believe that she has to deny it because it is too painful for her to accept what happened to me.  If she were to accept that, then she would have to accept that she failed to protect me and then her own toxic shame would be too much for her to bear.

Perhaps that is also true for your mother.  Perhaps not.  But this is the truth that I have found in my own experience. 

Even if this doesn't resonate with you, maybe it will give you hope that you will find your own truth.

Wishing you happiness and healing.

Hi there.

I'm also new here.  I can relate to the feeling of trying to manage CPTSD as a group of other conditions and then finally discovering it was CPTSD all along.

You will tell your story the way that is right for you, and sometimes that doesn't even mean detailing what actually happened. 

For me personally, I've always found opening up about the past too painful and vulnerable.  I prefer to talk about how it impacts me in the present.  Maybe that's how you feel too, or maybe you are finding a way to tell your story in a way that resonates with you.

Either way I'm glad to see others starting this part of the journey at the same time as me.

Oh gosh, a bit intimidating doing this but here we go...

I'm Anna.  I was finally accurately diagnosed with CPTSD in 2021 after over a decade of symptoms being misdiagnosed as generalised anxiety/depression/OCD/BPD and pretty much any other label that could be thrown at me!

I'm very fortunate to have found a wonderful therapist who specialises in trauma and have been working with her on and off for around 5 years, even before my formal diagnosis.

I would say that I'm generally doing well with recovery.  But, as many of you will understand, CPTSD doesn't go away and the reality of this condition being a part of my life has been weighing heavily on me recently.
One thing that has been particularly difficult is finding meaningful support from people other than my therapist.  I have a very supportive partner and small circle of friends, but they truly do not understand what it's like to live with CPTSD.

So here I am, hoping to connect with people who know what life is like through the trauma lens.  Hopefully I can gain something from this forum and hopefully I can give something back.